by Cathy Lamb
The nurse fastened the leather straps around the woman’s wrists. She didn’t want to do it, but she had to. It was the rule. All prisoners giving birth in the jail’s infirmary had to be strapped down, wrists, ankles, and one around the waist. One never knew! A woman could attempt an escape, yes, even one in the throngs of labor, minutes away from giving birth! She could waddle down the hallway, moaning in pain, teeter down the stairs and through the prison yard, without anyone noticing, her hand on her crotch to keep the baby in as she lithely leaped over the barbed wire fence. Escapes were definitely against the rules. So straps were always required.
The nurse, Clarissa Hortensen, knew how asinine the rules were. They were made up by men—what could one expect after all? Men thought with their nether regions most of the time. Still. She had to follow the rules or lose her job. She couldn’t lose her job. She had four kids, and her clumsy husband had lost his job when he’d broken two vertebrae in his back falling off their roof. She had told him not to get on the roof to fix a hole, but he did it anyhow.
If they had been lucky, this woman would have been in a real hospital. But an unexpected snowstorm hit, the streets were icy, and the prisoner hadn’t told anyone she was in labor until it was too late to transport her anyhow. It had also been too late to give her an epidural.
“Let me sit up, let me sit up so I can push!” The woman struggled against the restrictive leather straps as she was hit with another excruciating contraction.
The doctor snapped, “Push, woman, push.”
“I can’t push right when I can’t sit up!” the prisoner yelled back at him, her voice hoarse with pain. “I can hardly breathe!”
“Push unless you want this baby stuck in you forever.” The doctor was sweating, too. Dr. Rothney was heavy, in his late fifties, his face blasted with broken red veins.
There were two guards nearby. Both young, both pale and sickly looking. Guarding a murderer awaiting trial giving birth wasn’t what they’d signed up for. One leaned over, as if queasy, as the prisoner released a blood-curdling scream again. The other one swallowed hard and stared at the yellowing, cracked wall and tried to think about baseball. They were there to guard the inmate from leaving, but it didn’t look like she could get anywhere fast, so it didn’t make much sense.
The nurse held the woman’s hand. This was against the rules, but no one said anything. Everyone respected Clarissa. Or feared her. Depending on if she thought you were competent or an idiot, and she would tell you which one you were. “You can do this, Betsy. You can do it.”
“And if I do?” the murderer, Betsy, panted out. “You’re going to take it. You’re going to take my baby!” She roared, raw and pained, as another contraction dang near split her in two.
The nurse was tough, but she wanted to cry. It was true. They were taking the baby. Betsy’s father, a hypocritical minister, wanted nothing to do with the baby. He had told Clarissa on the phone when she called him and his wife weeks ago about the baby, and told them they could make a claim with the state for the child.
“The girl has sinned,” the minister thundered. “She has broken God’s law, may Jesus forgive her. She has fallen into sexual sin. She has fallen into the devil’s hands. She has committed a crime, and she is bound for hell. We will pray that the Lord removes the evil spirits from within her.”
“But do you want the baby?” she’d asked.
“No,” the minister said. “It is illegitimate. It is a bastard. We don’t want it. We will not bring more of this cursed affliction into—” He stopped then, in the middle of his rant. “Praise the Lord, we are not taking that baby.”
Clarissa thought she heard a woman in the background protesting, her voice tearful, but the minister boomed, “Be quiet and obey me, wife,” and hung up.
Fortunately, the adoptive parents were waiting downstairs. They had been told that the mother had to give up the baby, as she would be in prison, after her trial, for years. In the highly unlikely, ludicrous event that Betsy was found innocent, the adoptive parents would have to give the baby back to her, as agreed by signed legal papers, but everyone with a brain knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“If you don’t push, Betsy,” Clarissa said, “the baby will die.”
Betsy cried then, a gush of tears and hysteria. “I don’t want the baby to die,” she panted, near hysterical with pain. “I don’t want the baby to die. I don’t want the baby to die.”
“Save her then, Betsy,” Clarissa said. “Save her.”
Dr. Rothney made a choking sound in his throat. He had worked here in the jail for five years. He hated the job, but it was the only place that would hire him after two—well, three—problems at other hospitals. He had almost lost his license but had liquidated his retirement fund, the money that had not been used for gambling and alcohol, and had hired an expensive, effective attorney. He lost his job at the hospital downtown, but here, with lousy pay, they had overlooked his reputation to be an in-house jail doctor.
This young woman had killed a man, that’s why she was locked up. But he knew this one’s history. He knew about the upcoming trial. He was not convinced Betsy was guilty in the first place. When women killed men, it was usually in self-defense. Like his mother, when she shot her boyfriend in front of him when he was seven years old because he kept slamming her face into a wall.
Between Betsy’s shaking legs, Dr. Rothney bent his head. He knew he was a lousy doctor, his alcoholism had a dark, unbreakable grip on him, but he still had a heart. It was covered in regrets and guilt, it was drowned by a painful childhood, but it was still there.
“I want my baby,” Betsy cried, chanting to herself as if she’d half lost her mind to pain and grief. “I want her. I love her. I want her. I love her.” She convulsed and screamed again, a scream that wound down the corridors of the jail where some women were playing cards, some were chatting, and one was sneaking up on another and then jumped her. The woman who was jumped would end up in the infirmary, slashed with a toothbrush that had been carved into a knife, right across the neck. The woman who attacked the prisoner would end up in solitary, where she would sing to herself about rabbits.
“I love her,” Betsy sobbed. “I love you, Rose. I love you. . . .”
Dr. Rothney’s eyes filled with tears, but he told himself to buck up. He didn’t know how Betsy knew the baby was a girl, but he didn’t doubt her. He had checked on her and the pregnancy on several occasions and she was . . . interesting. Almost ethereal. Courageous. He had been brusque with her, though, maybe a little cold, he thought guiltily, not wanting to get involved. Quickly the doctor pushed down his feelings, as he’d done all his life. He stood up, put his hands on Betsy’s knees, and ordered, not without compassion, “Push, or you will die, too. Push, Betsy.”
Betsy leaned back, sweat dripping, and pushed, not for her but for the baby. It would have been easier if her wrists and waist had not been bound down. It would have been easier if she had been able to sit up, knees bent, but the belt around her prevented that. She pushed. For the baby. Her sweet baby. Their sweet baby. Their love child. Hers and Johnny’s daughter.
When nothing happened, and the situation deteriorated to a dangerous, chaotic level, with yelling on both sides, the doctor, after getting a nod of approval from Clarissa, removed the straps around Betsy’s waist and ankles so she could sit up and bear down.
The baby’s head emerged amidst the mother’s guttural screams.
“Almost there, Betsy,” Clarissa said, encouraged. “One more push. Huge push. Come on, Betsy.”
“She’s coming,” Dr. Rothney said, red and flushed. “Push! Push!”
Betsy yelled and the guard who had been leaning over his knees, overcome with nausea, tumbled to the floor. The other guard leaned over to check on him, then put both hands to his own forehead. He thought he was going to lose his lunch.
The baby slipped out, head and tiny shoulders, a tummy and legs, but she was quiet, too quiet.
“Is the baby oka
y?” Betsy cried, collapsing against the bed, her voice exhausted, her body spent. “What’s wrong? Why isn’t she crying? Is she okay?”
Dr. Rothney took the baby and turned it in his hand, his hands shaking, and gently tapped her back. Lord, he needed a drink.
The baby’s eyes met Betsy’s. She blinked. Betsy cried, this time with joy tinged with utter, lost sadness. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, Rose.”
The baby blinked again at Betsy, still, solemnly quiet, then, after another slap on her back, she started to cry. One wail only, though, as if to say hello, and then she settled back down.
“It’s a girl,” Clarissa said to Betsy. “But you already knew that.” She had seen Betsy several times in the infirmary here because of the pregnancy. They had talked about the daughter Betsy was expecting. Clarissa liked her, even though she assumed she was delusional. Betsy seemed decades older than her years—there was wisdom behind those gold eyes—but she was in mourning for a baby she knew she couldn’t keep if she was found guilty at trial. Betsy expected to be found guilty.
Clarissa could hardly wait to go home tonight to her three daughters. She could not imagine giving one of them up. Watching what was to come next for Betsy would rip her heart out. She would hate herself, she knew it, even though she wasn’t responsible for what was going to happen. Sometimes women gave birth in here and they were awful criminals, or neglectful and abusive mothers, and their other kids had already been taken away from them, and she was glad the baby was going somewhere else. Not this time.
“Give her to me, please,” Betsy begged, sobbing like she was breaking inside. “One time, let me hug her one time. Please. Please.”
The doctor knew he shouldn’t. It was strictly forbidden. Betsy was in jail awaiting a murder trial. They were taking the baby downstairs to the adoptive parents immediately. But he looked at Betsy, crumpled in the bed, her pale face a mix of tears and desperation and devastation. She was so young. Thick, dark black hair. Thin. High cheekbones. Huge eyes, golden, like he’d never seen before. He needed a drink so bad. God almighty, he needed a drink.
The doctor turned to the guards—the one who had fainted now leaning woozily against the wall, and the other one who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here—and spoke with authority. “You may go now.”
After the guards scuttled out, Dr. Rothney glanced at Clarissa. She nodded and unstrapped Betsy’s wrists. The doctor did not bother to strap her waist or her ankles up again, breaking all rules. The doctor gave the baby to the nurse, who cleaned her quickly, wrapped her in a pink blanket, and gave the baby to Betsy while the doctor finished his job between Betsy’s legs.
Betsy cried over her daughter, the nurse’s hand on her shoulder.
Thirty minutes later someone knocked on the door when Betsy was singing to Rose, a song about a girl who is loved by her mother and dances in a rose garden. “Privacy for the patient,” the doctor ordered. The knocking stopped.
Thirty minutes later, while Betsy cooed and sang and told her daughter, Rose, that she loved her, would always love her, there was another knock. “Privacy for the patient! Don’t interrupt.”
Dr. Rothney felt ill. He knew that he would have to take this baby from the mother soon. He would have Clarissa help. It was going to be an awful scene. It would haunt him, he knew. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, but this time it would be the worst, by far.
He hated this job, he did.
He watched Betsy cradle the little girl in the pink blanket, the baby’s eyes wide open, the two of them staring at each other. Betsy kissed the baby on her forehead, her little nose, her full cheeks. She was a gorgeous baby, alert, with dark hair and golden eyes—not blue, as usual, but golden, like her mother. It was so strange, the doctor thought, he had never seen eyes that color in a newborn . . . it was almost unheard of....
After forty-five minutes there was another knock. “The parents are waiting.”
“Privacy for the patient!” the doctor yelled, irritated, bracing for the excruciating scene to come.
“Oh no!” Betsy cried. “Oh no, please, please! I need more time.” She clung to the baby, sung to her, told her she loved her, that she looked like a pink rose.
The doctor wanted an entire bottle of scotch.
The nurse wanted to go home and hug her daughters. She sniffed and tried not to cry.
“I’m so sorry,” Clarissa said. “I’m going to have to take her.”
Betsy refused, tears running down her cheeks and onto the baby’s face, through the black hair that grew soft around her gentle features. “No, no, I am begging you. Let me hold her.” She started to get hysterical. The baby never cried as she stared into her mother’s eyes, the same as hers.
The doctor ran a shaking hand over his bald head as Betsy begged for her baby.
Dr. Rothney wearily nodded at Clarissa. The nurse went to a cabinet and got a shot ready. The shot was administered when Betsy was staring into the soft eyes of her daughter with such love. “I’ll always be with you, Rose,” she whispered. “I love you.”
Within seconds, Betsy was asleep, her arms slack, and Clarissa took the baby away and gave her to her new parents, who were so happy they cried, too.
* * *
Later that night, Dr. Rothney and Clarissa, both emotionally wrung out, checked on Betsy together. Betsy was restrapped to the bed, wrists and ankles, with another strap around her waist.
Betsy had woken up from being drugged and had leaped into hysteria. She screamed, fought to get out of her restraints, and pleaded to see her daughter. She had sobbed, right from the heart, a wrenching, pathetic sound. Clarissa had tried to calm her, but of course it hadn’t worked.
Betsy glared at them with a ferocity that took both of them back. Still, they were used to it here. Patients often looked at them with hatred. They had taken her baby from her; there was no other way for her to look at them.
“You,” she said to the doctor, “are going to die in two years. Your liver is like a pickle. Your girlfriend is going to leave you soon. She’s going to take your guitar collection.”
The doctor swallowed hard. How did she know about his liver problem? How did she know he had a girlfriend? How did she know about the guitar collection?
“And you,” she said to the nurse, “are pregnant. It’s a boy.”
The nurse knew that wasn’t true. Her husband had a vasectomy three months ago. He’d told her so.
“Your husband lied to you,” Betsy said. “Also, your oldest daughter is going to overdose on drugs.” Then she softened, some of her anger gone. “She’ll be wearing a red dress and knee-high black boots when it happens, so look for that outfit.”
That was ridiculous, Clarissa thought with a healthy dose of anger. She had even had sympathy for this girl! Well, that was all gone now. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare talk about my daughter like that!”
But the doctor and nurse were both stricken. They knew, even though the trial had not started yet, that Betsy said she had committed murder because she’d had a “premonition” about the man she’d killed. The man was going to kill his son, Johnny Kandinsky, her boyfriend, the father of the baby. The press had had a field day, calling her Premonition Betsy. And Betsy the Beautiful Fortune-Teller. And Crystal Ball Betsy.
“You took my baby away from me,” Betsy said. “You took her.” Then she began to cry, from the deepest part of her shattered soul.
The doctor and the nurse had the moral sense, amidst their own shock at the patient’s premonitions, to feel guilty and sick.
* * *
The doctor got super drunk that night and called in sick the next day.
The nurse went home and hugged her oldest daughter extra close.
* * *
The doctor’s girlfriend left him the same week that Betsy’s trial started. She took his guitar collection. He never saw her again. He thought of Betsy and the baby she had lost, and the trial that was being widely covered
in the papers. Only the whack jobs believed Betsy truly had a premonition about the father killing his son, her boyfriend. But now she’d predicted, exactly, that his girlfriend was going to leave him and take his guitar collection. Could she really have premonitions?
Guilt washed over him again for his part in taking the baby, and he felt as if he were drowning. Yes, it was his job, but still. He grabbed the fifth of vodka beside him and drank it like milk. Then he stopped. Betsy had also told him that he was going to die in two years, his liver a pickle. He decided he didn’t care. He drank again.
Dr. Rothney died as he lived, in pain, lonely, and alone, thinking of his own mother, who had gone to jail for shooting her boyfriend to protect herself, to protect him. On his last day on Earth, exactly two years after the premonition, he thought of Betsy and her baby and the last beat of his heart was filled with a deep sadness.
Clarissa, the nurse, found out she was pregnant a week later. Her husband had lied to her about the vasectomy. What a selfish, dense man, was her first thought. My God. She had married a man stupid enough to think he could get away with it. She kicked him out, and he spent six months begging her to take him back. He presented new papers showing he’d had a vasectomy. Their fifth child was a gift, a comfort as they dealt with their oldest daughter’s drug addiction.
On the night that her husband told her that her daughter was wearing a red dress and knee-high black boots when she ran from the house, Clarissa and her husband frantically searched for her, based on Betsy’s premonition. They found her in the back room of a drug house. She almost died. Clarissa did CPR, and the ambulance came.
The daughter later became a kindergarten teacher. Her parents were so proud.
The nurse never forgot Betsy. Her premonitions had come true and she had saved Clarissa’s daughter’s life. For the rest of her life, the nurse prayed for Betsy.
Chapter 3
I own a bookstore called Evie’s Books, Cake, and Tea because that’s what I sell: books, cake, and tea. Someone I loved with all my soul taught me to love all three, so it was an easy decision.
